Queen's Speech — Debate (5th Day)

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 7:52 pm on 25 November 2009.

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Photo of Baroness Prosser Baroness Prosser Labour 7:52, 25 November 2009

My Lords, I shall focus my remarks on the world of work and, in particular, on skills and training. However, I shall preface my comments with a couple of general points. Noble Lords will not need reminding that we operate in a fast-changing world. Technologies improve and develop week by week, continuing a journey that began many years ago and which, among other exciting things, exchanges people for machines. This is often the world of the sharp, the smart and the fleet of foot; it is a world of clicks, not bricks. The people needed, albeit in smaller numbers, must have refined skills and knowledge. They must be thoroughly literate and numerate and they must be flexible.

Running alongside these developments is the rapidly changing age profile of the UK's population. It shows more people wanting or needing to remain in paid employment after they have reached the normal retirement age. For the sake of the economy of the country and the budgets and finances of individuals, policies will need to be developed to accommodate working lives of 50 or 60 years. Therefore, on the one hand, we have a reduced need for numbers of people in many sectors of the economy and, on the other hand, we have a growing demand from parts of the population for paid employment.

Many of the technological skills mentioned earlier, which are highly regarded and therefore highly rewarded, are more naturally attached to the younger population. In part, this will change with time as younger workers take their technological dexterity into their middle and old age. However, as a country, we have to pit our abilities on this front against the increasing strength of economies worldwide. We cannot be complacent or tardy when faced with such urgent competition.

While we undoubtedly need to be ahead of the game in the very highly skilled sectors of the labour market, we also need to enable people at many levels to reach their potential and achieve the skills that the country needs to keep the economy going round. Trades unions can, and do, play a major role here. Figures from the TUC show that in the past year almost 250,000 workers have been helped into learning via the union learning fund, including 33,000 workers with significant literacy and numeracy needs.

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills produced a paper, Ambition 2020: World Class Skills and Jobs for the UK, which estimates that increasing by 5 percentage points the proportion of workers trained could result in 4 percentage points being added to the value of the worker by reason of increased commitment and improved productivity. Such a productivity rise would amount to an additional £40 billion on GDP. Trades unions also play a useful role in encouraging training and upskilling through the process of collective bargaining-for example, by negotiating skills and development plans for the workforce, often via joint union and management training committees.

Much has been done in recent years to address the skills needs of the UK economy. However, the picture can be patchy. Over 60 per cent of skills shortages are found in companies employing fewer than 25 people, even though those companies account for less than 30 per cent of the workforce. Ambition 2020: World Class Skills and Jobs for the UK also points out that the big problem is the mismatch between the number of highly skilled people and the availability of highly skilled jobs. In this country, we have a slower rate of growth in highly skilled jobs than many of our competitors. The report notes the need to raise employer ambitions and to stimulate demand as well as supply.

This will become more urgent as the demographic changes mentioned earlier work their way to the centre of the policy stage. There remains a need to press for more training across the labour market. Within the past 13 weeks, only 28 per cent of employees received job-related training. The figures break down in a worryingly old-fashioned way. Training was given to 43 per cent of professionals but only to 14 per cent of process and plant operatives, to 32 per cent of 20 to 24 year-olds but only to 24 per cent of 50 to 64 year-olds, and to 42 per cent of education and health workers but to a measly 19 per cent of manufacturing workers. How are we to be top of the global class with such a short-sighted approach to investment in our people?

Finally, I must mention the programme run through the sector skills councils snappily entitled the Women and Work Sector Pathways Initiative. Arising from the Women and Work Commission report of 2006 and funded almost entirely by government, the programme currently engages 11 sector skills councils. Since 2006, it has upskilled and/or trained well over 12,000 women, enabling them to move up within their employment or to move into areas where women are underrepresented. By any measure, this programme has been a success and I hope that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will continue to invest the required £5 million per year as part of the overall effort to make better use of the skills and abilities of our women workers.